Compressive Behaviour of Al-Si-Mg/SiCP Foams

Abstract

Aluminium foams are of interest due to their ultra low density, high structural stiffness per unit weight. Like conventional Al foams having Ca, ceramic particle (e.g. SiC, Al2O3) containing Al alloy metal matrix composite (MMC) foams can be produced. In this approach, parameters such as particle type, size, and volume fraction need to be optimized to get good quality foams with high foam expansions. However, the role of them on the compression properties of MMC foams is seldom reported. With this objective, the present study explores the effect of SiCP size and vol. % on compression behavior of various Al-Si/SiCP foams prepared at DMRL. From the large number of compression tests, it is observed that the reinforcement parameters don’t seem to play any effective role with respect to foam properties, although they are very important in foam manufacture.